Donaldson: Thought for the day about the reeling  and dealing  Red Sox

The Red Sox are in last place — for the second time in three years — with Jon Lester.

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Jim Donaldson
Posted Jul. 30, 2014 @ 7:40 am

The Red Sox are in last place — for the second time in three years — with Jon Lester.

How do they intend to get out of the A.L. East basement without him?

Forget about this year. The Sox have written off this season.

So, use those high-priced tickets you bought to watch prospects play. Much like at McCoy, but without the free parking. And feel free to take a picture of the World Series banner from 2013, if that will make you feel better.

Can the Red Sox, cellar dwellers now for two of the last three seasons — with, incongruously and incredibly, a championship season in between — contend for a title next year without an ace like Lester at the top of their starting rotation?

Make no mistake, the Red Sox can afford to pay Lester.

But they think it would be a mistake to pay him.

Instead, they want to trade him.

Clearly, they’ve decided that market price is too much for them to shell out to retain their staff ace, a guy who’s reliably made 30-plus starts and pitched 200-plus innings for them since 2008.

While the Red Sox want their fans to pay top dollar for tickets, they have no intention of doing so for players.

Not good business, team owner John Henry says.

“Virtually all of the underpaid players are under 30 and virtually all of the overpaid players are over 30,’’ Henry said in a interview with Bloomberg Businessweek earlier this year. “Yet teams continue to extravagantly overpay for players above the age of 30.’’

Instead of giving Lester, who’ll be 31 in January, the 5-or-6-year, likely $120 million or so he’ll command on the open market, the Red Sox are looking to trade him away and get more in return than the compensatory draft pick they’ll get if they didn’t deal him and he were to walk away in free agency.